9 Miles From Sled-Pocalypse
The seven of us roll outta Paradise on a mission, hell bent for Curtis. Tired, my old bones are sore, and its getting darker and colder by the minute. We all know this means slower average speeds, don't drive in front of your head lights, colder temps mean slow down as well, so its going to be a longer trip home. Yeah, sure is buttercup, watch this. Bigfoot, Elvis and Sally decided to make it awesome!
I'm the lead dog, about 10.5 miles from Paradise, check my mirrors and I'm alone, safety chain is broken. FAHK! Turn around, head back for my boys. We are literally 7 miles from Paradise! It's cold, it's dark, I'm not "feeling" Paradise.
So, I turn around the correct way, I STILL have a headache from the incorrect way, I find Timmay my #2 Dog, and following the rules, we make our way backwards and rebuild the chain. Until.... WHAT? PAT is broke down! I would have bet you BIG money it was Dan! Nope, its Pat's new sled!
Damage Assessment: Broken driveshaft. FAHK.
Situational Assessment: It's COLD, and DARK. Pat is down, none of us leave until mitigation. Remember its easier to DIE out here. Was that a bear I heard?
55 miles from camp. 3 miles from the road. Map and compass come out, where are we? GOT IT. Timmay, Danny, "GO EAST AND FIND THE ROAD!" Rescue Team en route, we can make this happen! Its 7:30 PM. The normal thing to do is simply tow the broken down sled to a place the truck and trailer can get to. Take the drive belt off, hook up another sled with the tow strap, and off we all go. Turn all the sleds around, hook up to the Rent A Cat and... Nope, not this time. Usually it's an engine failure, but with a broken driveshaft, Pat's track is locked up, and it won't move. Remember the track picks from my lesson earlier? Yeah, so do we now. Pat comes up with the idea of hooking 2 sleds up since we have to literally drag it out, and the track with 5,364 picks has a hold of the ice and snow like a fat kid on a donut. Double up the tow strap, hook up Jimmy's sled AND the Rent A Cat and start dragging. It works, not well at all, but at least we're traveling towards the Rescue Team. We come up to a hill, and the tow sleds lose traction, and back to standing in the dark on the side of the trail. Ideas are flowing pretty good as our brains aren't quite frozen yet, spin Pat's sled around and try to tow it backwards, which works until the next hill. Now it becomes apparent that Jimmy's sled it melting the drive belt from all the extra work, and the whole idea is abandoned. What's worse than towing a sled out of the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night? Towing 2 of them out of nowhere in the middle of the night. Several ideas were thrown around, such as putting Pat's up on the back of another sled tow truck style, get the track up off the ground. It's already working on 9:00 PM now when we remember seeing a plastic toboggan sled thingy at the Arctic Cat dealer in Paradise. So the new plan is send the truck back up to Paradise, buy the toboggan, bring it back down to Timmay and Danny waiting at the side of the road, haul it back in to us, throw it under Pat's track and get back to towing. I like it! While waiting, I found some branches about as big around as your wrist, throw those under the track, but it didn't work. A little tweaking and it would have, but with a plan already in place, we quickly abandoned the extra work. What are we up to by now Plan "G" or "H"? Spin Pat's sled around AGAIN, get all the sleds off to the side of the trail, and we're on a pretty long straightaway so we feel relatively safe as far as oncoming traffic is concerned. Even though there really isn't any because we're the only idiots still on the trails. Sally is a whore.
Green path is us from Paradise, Rescue Team pickup spot is south of us, at the bottom of the "U"
Now there are 5 grown men standing on the side of the trail and it is SOOO quiet. No sleds, not close enough to the road to hear any cars. Out comes the dick and fart jokes, girl scout-esque ass grabbing and rabble rousing. I would expect nothing less, and would have been disappointed without it!
A short time later, we hear Timmay and Danny on the way back up the trail, hopefully with the toboggan. We weren't sure if the Arctic Cat dealer was still open, so the two options were that they were coming back according to the plan, or they were coming back to say goodbye before we died right here on the side of the trail. I have never been so happy to see a chunk of plastic before in my life!
Get the toboggan under Pat's track, and the gravity of the situation starts to sink in. We still have a hell of a ride ahead of us, and it's just after 9:00. Since we have to actually ride on the streets in Blueberry, which is 100% legal, but they do have a 10:30 shut down ordinance. We need to move some snow under these things! We're not even back to the falls yet! Pat pulls me aside and fills me in on plan "M" I think. Jimmy is gonna tow him back to the truck, load both on the trailer. We're kind of worried about Jimmy's belt. Me, Timmay, Danny, Vadim and Ed are gonna head back to Curtis from here. Not the ideal situation, but given the circumstances, I agree that that's the best choice at this point.
So off they went to meet Uncle Tim, Uncle Ed, and Erick somewhere on route 123. Unbeknownst to any of us, Sally went with them. The rest of us had a quick safety meeting, stay close, utmost importance to stay together, etc. Bundled up, and off we went.
The Nightmare Ride:
Its cold, I mean really cold. But if you're moving, the heat from the engine blows back on you and actually warms you up, a little. Too fast and the windchill takes over and you freeze. I don't know who invented hand warmers on sleds, but I'd like to give him a hug right now. Heading back through the national park, I'm aware of how easy it'd be to get lost up here. I look for landmarks, to make sure I'm heading the right way. There was some "red" snow in the park, from the soil, saw it. A stump had snow stacked on top of it, looked just like a giant mushroom. OK, we're heading the right way. So far. Lots of time to think, check mirrors, yep all 5 of us are together. Think about what we need to get my own sled up and running back home, think about how cold its getting, you can actually feel the temp dropping by the minute. Think about HEY! Wait a tick!! This was Pat's idea, and his ass is all warm and cozy riding home in the truck!! Little Bastard! Think about how there's definitely gonna be some whiskey and a beer in our future after we get back and thawed out! Already thinking about typing this story.
Made it through the power line sections, and whoop de do's and red snow in the park, so I know we're west of the falls, should be heading south soon to the drag strips north of Blueberry. HAVE to make it through Blueberry before 10:30 and I know its gonna be close. Grab a little more throttle. Nope, too much it's farghin COLD, back off a little and try to find a happy medium, need to move the snow under us, but temp and headlights force us to slow down. OK, slow and steady wins. Hit some ungroomed trails north of the drag strip sections, literally up and down, up and down, like riding a pissed off bull. Have to slow way down, costing us more time.
Finally make it to the drag strip section, and its all groomed nice and smooth! We're the first to make tracks! Giddy Up! GAHD DAMN is it flippin COLD! 60-70 MPH on the way up, now we can only do 35-40. Another time bandit. The wind was absolutely brutal, can't imagine how it was for the rest of the gang behind me. At least I didn't have snow kicked up in my face. Made it through the 4 mile section, and was actually glad to see the turns through the woods, its a half a degree warmer. Then we hit the 11 mile straight section. Shit damn, holy crap, screw this! Try to pull my head down out of the wind, between my shoulders, and think about core temp. Hell, they're only fingers and toes, I can live without a few. Even the first aid kit on my back is adding another layer of protection, and I can literally tell my back is a few degrees warmer.
Know what it means when you're the first one making tracks on a freshly groomed track? It means you're behind a groomer! We eventually caught up to him, had to wait until the trail widened out enough for us to get around, Blueberry was getting close. It HAD to be. I am SO cold, I bet the guys behind me are the same if not a little worse. Pat is in a nice warm truck. He's getting kicked in the shin when we get back.
Finally reach the trails coming into the north side of Newberry, and its decision time. Spend even more time warming up in the gas station, or do a splash and go fuel stop and keep trucking? Pull up to the gas pumps, and I'm reminded of the mini-bike in Aspen scene from Dumb & Dumber watching the gang try to stand up and get off the sleds. Oh shit, it's 10:15, I guess that answers my question, splash and go, maybe only a few minutes at best to warm up. Saddle up boys! We have 15 minutes to get outta Dodge!
South of Blueberry we ran into more ungroomed trails, BAD ungroomed, the pissed off bull's angry big brother. YES. That's all I had to stay. "You drove 10 hours to sit in a cabin?" "YES!" See how easy that is? But at least my Fraid of Missin Something spidey senses were correct, cuz I would have missed ALL DIS FUN! Pat is getting kicked in BOTH shins.
A little further south and the trails smoothed out somewhat, but the temp kept dropping. At this point it was no longer about riding, even though this was our last ride, we're leaving tomorrow. It was about Curtis Michigan. Nothing more, just reaching Curtis with all of us and our body parts intact. Finally! Finally get to trails that I recognize as being near Curtis and I know we'll be home and warm soon. Pop out of the trails onto the road, a few miles and one right turn from glory. As we're coming up the road, I see the Pine Bluff Resort sign, what a ride. Check behind us, all sleds are still in a group, no cars coming, check in front, one car coming. Puts its turn signal on, turns into our resort just ahead of me. Its the idiots in the Rescue Truck!!! Paradise is just over an hour drive, and I know we've been riding for at least twice that long. Those mother hunchers went to a bar!!! Not only rode home in a nice warm truck, but stop at a bar while we're freezing to death? OK, no more kicks in the shin, as soon as I thaw out enough someone is getting throat punched!
I follow the truck to our cabin, and notice the trailer lights aren't working right. WTF? I spent an hour fixing those right before we left! We all pull up to the cabin, pull my frozen ass off the sled, someone is getting a boot thrown at them! Uncle Tim, Uncle Ed, Erick, Pat and Jimmy get out of the truck, and they look as frazzled and beat as we do! And I noticed all the sleds seem jostled around on the trailer. "What the hell happened?" "I would rather have been with you!" We all go into the cabin where it's warm and then the stories start. It's now approaching midnight.
Evidently during the ride home in the truck, Sally kicked the trailer off the hitch! Crash, Boom, Bang, Uncle Tim showing off his driving skills, and luckily kept the trailer mostly behind them, with everyone safe and only minor damage to the truck and trailer! Had to stop in Newberry to buy a new hitch, and no one was open. Random stranger pulls into the gas station, with the correct hitch on his truck, "Hey buddy. You're not leaving the parking lot with that hitch. How much?" $42 later, and some bungee cords later, they were back on the road. A little gun shy, but back on the road. I'm certain there's way more to it, but I wasn't there so I can only embellish, maybe we can talk Pat into telling us more on that part of the story.
No words were needed or exchanged, Pat simply walked over, got glasses down, and Jack Daniels and started passing out drinks. Good friends, safe and sound, thawing out, each with our own version of the night's happenings. Sore, beaten, bruised and tired. Literally it was difficult to hold my head up because my neck was so sore from the ride. I didn't sign up for this, and if that's what riding is about, I'm out and would be happy to never have my ass on a sled again.
"Billy, Billy, Billy!"
"What." Thinking again I should have said Yes and stayed home this morning.
"You coming back next year?"
"HELL YES!!!"
